Many people add a disclaimer that their beliefs do not reflect those of their agency. Mine do. I represent the Aurora (IL) Police Department and I strive to keep my values aligned. Here are some of my thoughts.

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Tuesday, December 29, 2015

I used to believe that success was defined by achievement. I admired those who achieved degrees and titles because those things seemed to be what people celebrated.

The older I get, the more I have come to realize how no achievement matters if you think in terms of scarcity. If you believe that everything is a competition and everyone threatens your success, you will spend your life manipulating and strategizing to keep people down.

Those who make it their life’s work to elevate themselves by stepping on others might succeed in obtaining power and status but they'll eventually find themselves in a lonely existence.

Because in the end, titles fall away and power diminishes and what is left is the person you are — not the position or degree you’ve achieved. What becomes most important is the way you have treated people along the way.

So perhaps our greatest achievements and the legacy we leave lies in what we give instead of what we take.

Monday, November 16, 2015

It feels misleading to say he "passed away" because that gives the perception of a serene slipping away. It's not the same in my mind since he killed himself.

I have been on countless suicide scenes over my career and I find them to be so complex because those who find the victim are often the ones who loved them the most. I could never understand how a person could be so selfish to leave their family with that final memory and in the incidents where there was no note or warning, leave them wondering why.

The anger I have felt on behalf of family members has been real. And now I’m that family member attempting to get inside the head of a man who chose to leave this world without saying goodbye to his one and only child. I vacillate between profound sadness and wanting to beat my fists against his chest.

And then I think about the man who was my father and the demons he fought throughout his life. He was two people to me and I have mastered the art of compartmentalizing both.

He was a man with a very high IQ and my earliest memories are sitting on his lap watching television shows like Jacques Cousteau’s underwater exploration and Carl Sagan’s personal voyage through the cosmos. He read me works from the analytical psychologist, Carl Jung and I was bored by it but I pretended to love it because he did. He also exposed me to The Benny Hill Show and loved listening to his thunderous cackle even though I didn’t understand what was so funny. (I now realize allowing me to watch that show was mediocre parenting at best!)

He took things apart and put them back together and his degree from the DeVry Institute of Technology resulted in our garage being turned into a television repair shop. He was a police officer by trade but a technical hobbyist during his off-hours. I sat in his workshop with him and he let me melt spools of metal using the soldering gun (another example of mediocre parenting in hindsight.)

I didn’t realize until adulthood how much his curiosity about life was woven through the tapestry of me and how it’s manifested into my insatiable thirst for knowledge. He’s the reason I became a police officer and I’m blessed that his military and law enforcement service was instilled in me.

Then there was the other side of my father. I would often sneak into his liquor cabinet and pour bottle after bottle down the drain so he would stop drinking. His restless mind was likely the result of his addictive personality and I’m not sure he was ever able to quiet his thoughts — so he drank them away. I wrote him letters as a child and begged him to stop drinking. He never acknowledged me and continued to replace every bottle I washed away in the sink. He would leave work and go immediately to the social club (a.k.a. bar) and when he got home, I learned to tailor my behavior to his mood.

The demons of addiction took over his life and that became his script and downward spiral. He lost everything that was important to him but in my mind, it was his choice. My dad is the reason I thought everyone who had a cocktail in their own home was an alcoholic. It wasn’t until I was in my 30’s that I finally understood that moderation and balance is the key to everything in life but I still find myself triggered by those who indulge to excess regularly. It’s part of the reason I grapple with understanding addiction because I have spent my entire life convinced it’s a choice. Those who are alcoholics and addicts choose their poison over their loved-ones. At least that’s what I used to believe.

He was only 70 years old when he decided he didn’t want to be here anymore. His disease of addiction caught up with him and he chose to leave this life using the weapon he carried on his side as a police officer. And now I’m left with remnants of his dual existence and I’ve been trying to make sense of it all by separating the darkness from the light.

Our parents and other influencers are fallible and imperfect and the way to peace is to recognize and embrace both their light and dark. I choose to cling to the angel memory of a man whose energy is making its way to Carl Sagan’s vast cosmos and I’m going to let go of the man with the demons.

My friend Jeff put it best: We must copy the angels and learn from the demons.

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

When I learned that Lt. Joe Gliniewicz from Fox Lake, IL, was shot and killed while investigating 3 suspicious subjects, I was devastated. There were 7 officers shot that week in incidents across the country and emotions were already running high. So when it happened so close to home, it felt like an epidemic that was closing in. I actually believed there was a full-on assault against police officers.

The police response from all over the state to join the extensive manhunt for the 3 “shooters” was not surprising. There were officers on the perimeter who were overheated and dehydrated but refused to give up their positions.

The sea of blue that enveloped Fox Lake on the day of the funeral was a testament to the support that the law enforcement family extends to one another. Having been indoctrinated into the police profession at an early age, I know what it’s like to be a part of the “brotherhood” and there is no greater feeling. When the police come together for good, we are at our best.

This is precisely why we in law enforcement feel so betrayed by Gliniewicz’ carefully choreographed staging of his own death. I learned early on in my career that law-breakers lie to cover up wrongdoing in both criminal and immoral acts. I have come to expect this.

But cops are supposed to be the good guys. They aren’t supposed to lie and when they do, it doesn’t bode well for our profession. The very core of policing is built on public trust, and when trust is eroded, the police risk becoming ineffective. The public should demand that their police officers enforce the law in an equitable way with service and justice as foundational principles. We can clearly see the consequence of officers who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. Their actions not only weaken our system of justice but also threaten the reputation of honorable and worthy police officers all across the nation.

There are two kinds of mistakes: mistakes of the head and mistakes of the heart. Mistakes of the head are calculated and willful acts of misconduct (and should really be called "on-purposes"). Mistakes of the heart are truly accidental where there is no malice or forethought. I have the utmost empathy for well meaning officers who try and fail. Especially since unlike most professions, mistakes in law enforcement can be fatal mistakes.

Joe Gliniewicz is an example of law enforcement at its worst. His criminal actions leading up to his death tarnished the badge and his staged murder ranks up there with deplorable acts like planting evidence and coerced confessions.

The “hometown hero” was a selfish man whose private character was far different from his public persona. I can hardly imagine what his family went through as the details of his corruption and his calculated ruse began to unfold. The betrayal to the law enforcement community pales in comparison to that of his own children. My hope is they can move forward someday and find peace with the memory of what was good about their father because I have to believe (for their sake) that parts of him were good.

As for the law enforcement community, we’ll take another tarnish on each of our badges because the public tends to paint us all with a broad brush. But we will continue to rebuild trust one contact at a time so the citizens we serve are reminded that guys like Gliniewicz are the exception.

We can begin this thought process by recognizing that it was police officers who sifted through the grain and the chaff to get to the truth. Law Enforcement agencies worked together to uncover and expose one of their own. I believe there was a time in the not so distant past where that investigation might have turned out differently.

I offer my sincerest gratitude to those in my profession who had the excruciating job of investigating this case.

We must always search for the truth no matter where it leads us; even when it leads where we’d rather not go.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

I got accepted into the Naval Postgraduate School to pursue a second Master’s Degree in Homeland Security and Defense in June of this year. I decided to move outside of my comfort zone in quest of this degree because I feel as though state and local government needs to be more in sync with the Federal initiatives that involve keeping our homeland secure. When agents interrupted two Aurora natives just prior to their joining ISIS earlier in the year, I started to pay attention to ways our local police might be able to assist in the Homeland Security Enterprise. In short, I need to learn more about what I don’t know.

I’m only months into the Department of Homeland Security program and my mind has already been expanded beyond it’s original proportions. When I met my classmates during our first “in-residence” stay at the Naval base, I was certain that the officials would realize their mistake by allowing me into the program so I didn’t fully unpack {smile}. My classmates represent a facet of Federal entities and are experts in things like: all-source intelligence operations, Foreign Intelligence Services, border protection, emergency management, technology in Homeland Security (to name a few).

In other words, they are really smart people with really high security clearances.

I quickly regained confidence as it became more and more clear to me that local police agencies have a great deal of resources and intelligence that can serve as a force-multiplier when it comes to protecting our city. It didn’t take long to understand that this “enterprise” works when all the players come together to share information.

My first research paper was due yesterday and I decided to write about the current plight of policing and the trust that has been eroded as a result of high profile incidents in our nation. I turned my focus on “soft power” in contrast to “hard power” and set out to explore how the former is not “soft” at all and how we can build better police officers by instilling empathy, compassion and respect as the foundation of training. Skills like defensive tactics, firearms proficiency and arrest techniques are crucial but employing the former during the initial interaction might actually keep officers from having to resort to the latter.

I was pretty proud of the final 16 page product. That is, until I received feedback from my professor. He turned my words into a sea of digital red ink and the common theme in his criticism was my lack of evidence to back up my claims. I began my paper with the following sentence: “The public has lost trust in the police.” It’s a pretty bold declaration and the red font inserted by my professor was:

“Who are you and why should we believe you? Where is the evidence to back up this statement”?

I was thinking, “I’m Kristen Ziman and I’m a cop and I know this because I feel it.”

As it turns out, I am not a reputable source. Mind blown!

I should know better. After all, I’ve been a police officer for 21 years and I have tons of experience writing police reports and from our first day in the academy, we are taught that the foundation of report-writing is to report only the facts.

There is no tolerance for rumor, conjecture, opinion any other descriptive word that isn’t based on fact.

I’ve been a columnist for the “Beacon News” since the mid-2000’s and in my columns, it’s pretty common knowledge that I offer my editorial - my opine. My writing is based on my knowledge and experience but it is merely my personal thoughts on police-related matters through my lens.

I like writing in that style because it’s important to me that people know where I stand on most topics and it offers an opportunity for respectful discourse. I adore it when a reader disagrees and shows me a different perspective that I might not have considered.

There’s a time and a place for editorials. However, in order to achieve a degree in Department of Homeland Security, it’s time to get back to basics of research and report only the facts.

Now I just need to stop retorting to people during conversations, “Who are you and why should I believe you?”

Without fact or supportive evidence, there is only opinion — and that’s pretty much the same as fiction.

Friday, August 21, 2015

When I was a kid, I used to read a book series called “Choose Your Own Adventure”. I loved the books because the stories were formatted so that the reader would be faced with two or three options, each of which leads to more options, and then to one of many endings. Making the right choices led you to the best ending, while making the wrong ones led you to one of a myriad of horrible and agonizing deaths (pretty gruesome for a 10 year old now that I really think about it).

The concept of these books flooded from memory into consciousness while having a conversation with friends about the choices we’d made in life (many of which resulted in failures) and how those experiences were what brought us to that very moment in time. We wondered where we would be and who we would be with if we’d opted for another path.

Everyone pondered for a few moments and I went on a vacation in my mind back to my childhood where I hid under my covers and read with a flashlight well past my bedtime. In the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, the one and only rule was that you couldn’t randomly flip through the pages. Being a rule follower, I would go back to the beginning and make a different choice when prompted and it would alter the outcome of the plot. I would continue reading and re-reading until I was satisfied with the ending.

What if life were actually like that and we could go back and make a different choice that would alter our existence? As a police officer, I have watched people err time and time again. One bad choice can put a once promising future on a different trajectory. I think of those who committed crimes without having a deep understanding of the consequences and wonder what would happen if they could alter the outcome of their lives.

In cases of addiction and substance abuse, might one want to turn back to the moment in time they took the first hit of the poison that now imprisons them? Life is usually understood in retrospect so when we connect the dots of our lives backwards, we see so clearly where we went wrong. Unfortunately, reality doesn’t allow us to go backwards and make a different decision. What is done is already etched in permanence. We are victims of our circumstances and much of that is a result of the decisions we’ve made.

So we are doomed by our bad decisions and there is no happy ending and we all die. The end.

The more I pondered, I realized that life is more like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book than I thought and we actually can alter the trajectory of our lives even after a wrong turn. While I have seen lives devastated, I have also seen lives completely turned around. I have had the pleasure of seeing rehabilitated felons and reformed addicts change their future by deciding to do so. It’s never easy (in fact it’s really difficult) but nothing worth doing is ever easy.

The people who settle with an unhappy ending are those who practice learned helplessness. This is when a person decides to be a victim of their choices and circumstances thus figuratively paralyzing them from change. Fortunately, you can unlearn what you have learned by changing your mindset.

I don’t care how bad your bad decision was that landed you where you are; you still have the power to create a new outcome. Obviously you cannot go back to the the beginning and undo what happened, but you can most certainly turn the page and start a new chapter.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Bertrand Russell said "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”

If this is a true statement, I must be borderline genius given my consistent grapple with uncertainty. Choices that confront us are so easy when we have to choose between right and wrong. If we are of sound mind and moral character, we know the difference between the extremes because social norms and the laws of our land help us to distinguish them.

It’s the complexities that life presents us when we are at a proverbial crossroads of “two rights”. These situations arise when we look closer at a complex problem and determine that many different variables exist that distort the “right versus wrong” formula.

Even the mother of all commandments is subject to some gray area. “Thou shalt not kill” seems pretty clear at face value. For some, no ideological or political conviction would justify the sacrifice of a human life. The value of life is absolute, with no concessions. It's not negotiable.

For others, it’s merely a guideline with a magnitude of exemptions.

“Thou shalt not kill.”*

*unless someone makes you angry, they are a rival gang member or they have different beliefs, etc.

The bloodshed in our cities is evidence that this barbaric mindset exists. Because we are a democracy that follows the rule of law, there are consequences for taking the life of another so one must be willing to capitulate to that punishment.

But there are other exemptions for the taking of a human life that fall within the parameters of legality. If one is provoked to a point where they have to defend their own life or the life of someone else, it is acceptable to kill.

If even the greatest of all commandments has some gray area, suffice it to say that the lessor-important things in life do as well.

To traverse through the gray areas, we need a clear line of site to purpose and morality because when we don’t align to our ethical “truth north”, there is no visible path. When there is no path, we lose our way.

Think of the magnitude of this concept. Religious people have a guidebook to follow (the Bible, Torah, Quran, Buddhist Sutras, ect). In these books, it clearly stipulates the path you should follow. If eternal salvation is the end it mind, one of these books will get you there.

What keeps the non-believers from committing atrocities? How on earth are human beings expected to behave if the notion of a burning inferno isn’t constantly fearing them into behaving properly? Even religion isn’t foolproof since so many have been killed in the name of it.

Perhaps it is the rule of law and the fear of losing our basic fundamental right of freedom that keeps social order. I secretly wonder what kind of hullabaloo would ensue if people succumbed to their own instinctual desires without consequence.

Whether it’s religion or obedience to laws, we seem to have most of the bases covered when it comes knowing what is acceptable and what is not. And yet we still commit atrocities against one another in love and war and all things in-between.

I guess life is just that - a vast quantity of gray area for which we have to navigate. But maybe if we try and do as much of that navigating with the right end in mind, our paths would be more clear.

Maybe if we stopped being detoured by pettiness, hatred and revenge and spent more time seeing the value of other human beings, the natural consequence would be improved organizations and communities.

If religion and laws cannot keep us on the right path, seeing one another as living and breathing people rather than objects might do the trick. If we were able to see (really see) that people are made up of the same fears and hopes that we are, we might not be so quick to pull the trigger, steal from them, or bully them.

Given my propensity for uncertainly, I’m probably not correct about any of this.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

A few years ago, video was captured of Baltimore police officer Salvatore Rivieri confronting some kids who were skateboarding in an area that was prohibited. In the video, Officer Rivieri approaches and advises them in a rather stern manner that they cannot ride their skateboards in the area. One of the kids replies, “Okay, I didn’t hear you” and Rivieri immediately becomes confrontational with him. He tells the skater that he’s going to put him in "juvie" and call his father. When the kid responds, “I don’t have a father”, Officer Rivieri threatens to “smack the kid upside his head” and when the boy says, “I didn’t do anything” the officer charges at him, rips his skateboard from his hands and puts the kid in a choke hold to take him to the ground. The situation escalates even more violently.

I resurrect this story from several years ago because it closely parallels the interaction that McKinney, Texas police Sergeant Eric Casebolt had with the juveniles at the pool. The video begins with two officers sprinting towards what I assume is a disturbance involving other officers. An unidentified officer drops his flashlight during his sprint and the teen who is videotaping catches up to him to return it. The officer expresses his gratitude to the teen and addresses a group firmly by advising them not to “take off running when the police arrive.” He displays a command presence while being extremely respectful. As a result, the kids not only cooperate with the officer but provide him with additional information about the incident.

Sergeant Casebolt then enters the video frame in what can only be described as a volatile demeanor and the footage depicts him taking a male to the ground. He screams to all the kids to “get their asses down on the ground” and then confronts two males in the street and tells them to “get the F#$* down”. The males can be seen immediately dropping to the ground in the street and Casebolt screams, “get to the grass” and they comply.

Casebolt has no control over the scene because he’s lost control of himself. The kids are not following Casebolt’s profanity-ridden commands to disperse and girl gets mouthy with him. He takes her to the ground forcefully which incites the crowd. Casebolt draws his weapon when a few teens close the gap towards him.

In these two incidents I’ve described, it’s important to point out that laws were violated by the teens. In the former, skateboarding was prohibited. In the latter, the teens disobeyed a lawful order to disperse.

I have heard arguments on behalf of the police officer in the latter situation that the girl was mouthy and not following his orders. I recognize that in many cases, the scenario begins with a violation of law and even people being disrespectful, however, the police officer’s demeanor in both of these incidents are what I opine to have escalated the situation.

It’s hard for me to watch these videos because I know what it’s like to be on a chaotic scene where it’s difficult to control people as the “mob mentality” sets in. I know what it’s like to feel vulnerable of my own safety in these situations.

But I also know by learning from the best what it’s like to calm a crowd down by talking to them respectfully. I learned very early on in my career that I didn’t have the stature to prevail physically against someone wishing to cause me harm so I had to develop communication skills to gain compliance. I started to watch and learn from the most successful police officers (no matter what their size) and it became apparent to me that the more you treat others with respect — even those who break the law — the more they will cooperate. Sadly, I have also learned precisely what not to do from those officers who always seem to agitate those with whom they interact.

Giving the benefit of the doubt, I surmise the police officers depicted in these videos are good human beings at heart. But I can say with certainty that they could have handled these situations better and in doing so, neither would have escalated to use of force.

The majority of people respond to being treated with human dignity and respect. Whether it be kids or adults, the manner in which a police officer engages a person has the propensity to alter the outcome. Certainly there are those individuals who will be non-compliant no matter what, but I have found that most people respond in kind to the way they are treated.

I always describe our police officers as warriors because they are first line of defense in our community. I still feel that way because we need our officers to have a warrior mindset when they engage the violent part of society that holds hostage the law-abiding citizens. A true warrior learns to master his emotions and acts purposefully and for the greater good. There is a time and a place for this mindset where human life is being threatened.

But in the majority of encounters, police officers should have the guardian mindset and not the warrior mindset. Guardians are responsible for the safekeeping of a city and every police action must be built upon trust and respect. When police lose trust in the community they serve, they can no longer be effective.

Police officers need to embrace the mindset of guardianship and the first step in doing so is to look at all people with whom they interact instead of looking down upon on them.

Monday, May 25, 2015

During his sermon Sunday morning, Reverend Gary McCann talked about names. Quite simply, the name given to us at birth that we’ve spent our lives growing into. The name we answer to when called upon and what has become the core of our identity.

Reverend Gary talked about how we are much more than the labels given to us and that our name sets us apart as individuals.

As I was listening to the words, I couldn’t help but correlate the message to policing.

Police officers have a tendency to assume the worst in people. This is quite normal given that we see the worst of society and we learn early in our careers that human beings are capable of committing heinous and atrocious acts against one another. This might sound like an excuse to justify clinging to our callousness but the psychology of this is actually quite basic. The result of being lied to is distrust. The fact that most of the people we arrest lie to cover up their transgressions makes not trusting others a natural consequence. The result of being attacked for no other reason than the uniform we wear results in walking around believing someone is trying to harm us - even off duty.

So when Reverend Gary said that we tend to label others without seeing their humanness, I couldn’t help but think of all the times I have done that throughout my career. Because we often criticize what we don’t understand, I used to struggle in finding compassion for any “criminals”.

And then I started having conversations with people and asking questions. That’s how I learned about Scott. He’s a heroine addict and he has a felony record for possession. He wears the label “addict” and “felon” but he’s more than that. He is a mechanic by trade but he lost his job, his family and his home as a result of his addiction. Before he was addicted to heroin, he played the trumpet as a hobby. He can hardly remember just being Scott because all anyone sees is “heroin addict” affixed to his chest like a scarlet letter.

Scott has successfully completed drug rehabilitation court and he’s been clean for over a year. I don’t know what it’s like to have an addiction that takes over your life and pushes out the good things in it like family and friends, but I can tell you that hearing his story makes me think twice before putting people in boxes because Scott is a good man fighting the demon of his addiction.

I still grapple with the very concept of gangs. At this time in Aurora when we are seeing an increase in gang-related crimes, I struggle to feel any sympathy for these criminals whose violent acts cast a dark cloud over the city that I love.

The game they play is the epitome of labeling. They hate one another because they are in rival gangs. It’s barbaric and it’s weak and I wonder if they ever stop to think about how preposterous it is.

Then again, humans are conditioned to label and judge everything from appearance to race to socio-economic status. Granted, only the barbaric go around physically harming one another but we are all guilty of carrying out our judgments in other ways.

The police have a tendency to label someone a criminal because they’ve committed a crime. What if we still held people accountable for the acts they’ve committed without defining them? I subscribe to the notion that when people are labeled they tend to behave in alignment with those labels.

Perhaps if we spent less time generalizing one another for the label that is affixed to us and more time learning about the human being behind the label we would begin to see similarities instead of differences in one another.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

I was skimming through a few of the Aurora Facebook groups where residents convene to post and discuss anything and everything pertaining to Aurora. As a resident of Aurora, I always love to see pictures of beautiful architecture and landmarks that are so prominent in our city. But I also started to notice that our residents were taking to these forums to report crimes. It was not uncommon to see a post that inquired, “Did anyone hear the gun shots last night?” followed by blanket statements like, “I’m moving out of this city”.

A few things struck me as I was reading. First and foremost, our citizens weren’t calling the police about these events. Second, the blatant misinformation and conjecture that was being communicated was troubling.

I realized that in the absence of bonafide data, people will fill in the blanks. When you add a dose of opinion to snippets of information, rumor and innuendo are the consequence and that festers into paranoia.

As a result of the increase in gang-related shootings in our city, the Aurora Police Department formulated an internal operations strategy that includes our Intelligence Unit, Gang Unit, Investigations Unit and the Patrol Division. Our resident experts are sharing intel and formulating plans to combat the criminals who are committing these crimes.

In one of the strategy meetings, it occurred to me that we were missing a vital piece: our community members. The community forums were born as a result of the realization that even a police force of nearly 300 strong cannot be everywhere at all times in a city with a population of 200,000.

My first objective in the forums was to communicate factual data for each area. With complete transparency in mind, our Community Policing Officers broke down each shooting that occurred in their assigned neighborhood. We wanted people to know that even with the increase in shootings, violent crime is still down. We wanted to educate people on how we classify shootings and that a shooting doesn’t always mean a person was shot. We wanted everyone to know that we are concerned about the increase in gang violence but that we are still seeing record lows in crime. But even one shooting is one too many and we will never stop fighting crime in this community.

My second objective was to get our citizens more involved in the fight against crime. I want to get people away from their computer screens and out in their yards talking to their neighbors.

We accomplished the first objective and the fact that that over 700 people attended the forums would suggest we achieved the second. I am so grateful to the citizens who took time out of their busy lives to attend because that tells me how many people care about this city. I still think we can do better by getting people to start neighborhood groups - especially in the higher crime areas.

I learned a few personal lessons from the community forums. First and foremost, I obsessed about what we could have done better in each of the three meetings. I have a better idea going forward of how we can commit to constant self-improvement.

I also learned a tough but necessary lesson. No matter what we try and do, there is a small microcosm of Aurora that can only see what is wrong instead of what is right. They are driven by hatred and their own political agendas. Unfortunately, these people don’t do anything meaningful to be a part of the solution so they sit on the sidelines criticizing those who are out there trying to make this city even better. At first I struggled with the criticism because it felt futile. If the police department wouldn’t have held these forums, we’d have been accused of not being transparent. So we put ourselves out there and we were criticized for our message. The phrase, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” comes to mind.

It would have been much easier to ignore the fodder on social media and shrug my shoulders. It was difficult to put together the forums because it required that our officers give of their time to pull data and morph it into a presentation. Our officers put themselves out there to the community and that takes courage. But we will continue to do the right thing on behalf of the productive and caring residents who support the police and this city.

A few of the aforementioned critics chided that our only solution was to call 9-1-1. And yet, that is one of the most powerful things that any resident can do for us.

We’ve had two homicides in 2015 and one of them was solved immediately due to a citizen who witnessed a man running with a gun. The citizen called 9-1-1 and gave a detailed description and the location of the man running. Based on that information, our officers were able to swoop in within minutes and apprehend the offender after a foot pursuit.

A homicide was solved because a citizen cared enough to get involved and we could not have done it without him. To minimize citizen involvement is irresponsible because we are all on the same team. As with any team, we have different roles. The residents of this community should be so vested in their respective neighborhoods that they watch and report anything suspicious. Our role as the police are to move towards the threat as we are trained to do.

We have the same end in mind -- to make this community a safer place to live and raise our families. When we combine each of our roles with the overarching goal, together we will make Aurora a place where criminals cannot effectively operate.

We want to keep the conversation going with our citizens wherever and whenever we can. The men and women of the Aurora Police Department will continue to do the jobs they were entrusted to do because they are warriors with good purpose.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

The relative of a gang member who was recently shot and killed told the media, "Gang-banging was only a small part of who he was."

I knew what she meant. He was a son, a brother and a friend. He may very well have been a great guy.

This is the irony of criminals whose choices eventually catch up with them. Whether it be through incarceration or the gunshot that proved fatal, there are always people on the sidelines telling anyone who will listen what a great person they were - outside of being a criminal.

As humans, we cannot wrap our heads around senseless murders where innocent victims fall prey to violent and unstable killers.

The operative word is "innocent" in that the victims didn't engage in behavior that made them susceptible to harm. Truly innocent victims like those caught in crossfire, students in schools, shoppers in malls, or anyone else victimized by a dark-souled killer. These are the incidents that make us fall to our knees and ask our higher power, "Why"?

But when you are a person who engages in criminal activity, you must accept the associated risks. Similarly, if you are the parent of a child who hangs out with kids who "represent" by wearing gang colors or post pictures of themselves throwing up gang signs on their Facebook pages, that might be a clue that your child is up to no good.

If you take an active role in what your child is doing and with whom they are associating, it might thwart them from traveling down a destructive road.

I am not going to discount the aggravating factors that contribute to the evolution of a gang member. Social scientists tell us that the socio-economic status into which we are born, the geographic location, our culture, and whether we are loved or abused all play a part in who we become.

Kids oftentimes join gangs because they want to belong. If they don't feel a sense of belonging in their own family, they seek out that security elsewhere. The gang becomes their family.

There are so many reasons why our youth gravitate towards people and situations that are unhealthy. It is our job as parents and members of the community to provide the guidance they need to keep them on the right path.

It is the challenge of any parent to find the balance of structure and freedom.

I think of my kids as traveling on a highway where those solid, yellow lines flank the roadside. We want them to move freely within those confines and make their own independent choices about when to speed up, when to slow down and when to pass. But it is up to us as parents and mentors to monitor their speed, their distance from others on that road and to make damn sure that they don't cross those solid lines where danger lies on the other side.

The ultimate paradox is that kids not only need structure, they want it. One might think that joining a gang means youth break from structure but the truth is, gangs have plenty of it. There is a hierarchy and a fat book of procedures that accompany gang membership.

The first time I saw the bylaws of one of our local gangs, I recall thinking what a solid business model it represented. The organizational chart and its roles and positions were clearly outlined and defined. I wondered how successful the people who thoughtfully carved out the bylaws could be in the business world--- if only they channeled their talents towards positivity.

Knowing that kids need structure, it is all of our jobs to make sure they get it from people and places who will keep them "between the solid lines".

It is true that people are neither all good nor all bad. If it's true that the part of them that engages in gang or other criminal activity is just a small part, it is still the part that will get them killed.

Monday, February 9, 2015

The first communication we had with a barricaded subject allegedly armed with a gun came through his mother. She came to a scene recently, where our police officers had a tight perimeter on the house into which her son ran after allegedly shooting someone.

The son called his mom from inside the house and told her, “I love you and goodbye.” This was profound insight into the mental state of our 19 year old suspect and meant that we would prepare ourselves for the worst.

Police officers always prepare ourselves for the worst. When we are told there is one suspect in the house, we assume there are two. We are always prepared to find a weapon even if we are told there are none.

We never believe what we hear until it is confirmed with unwavering certainty. Most of the time that doesn’t happen until we can verify information with our own eyes or the eyes of one of our fellow officers. We sift through information given to us by various witnesses and we separate the grain from the chaff by meticulously following every lead.

It’s not distrust, per se. It’s just that humans get it wrong. A lot. And it is the job of the front line police officers to isolate the person who is a danger, contain them and stop them from hurting themselves or others. To do that, we must gather and verify intelligence, then act upon it.

So we prepare for the worst.

This takes both mental and physical preparation. Physical training ensures that the officers have the strength of body to persevere should they be faced with a confrontation and the mental toughness to stay in the fight without surrender.

We prepare not only for the world we live in but for the world we may find ourselves in. Police officers train for the worst because it would be a tragedy should we find ourselves unprepared.

It’s not unlike anything else in life. Preparation is what separates the successes from the failures. At those times we have fallen short, we can most likely look back and concede that we were not fully prepared because we didn’t put in the time.

Abraham Lincoln put this notion into context when he said, “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax”.

Unfortunately, the human condition can sometimes settle for the path of least resistance and we procrastinate when we know we should be preparing. We put off the hard work because it’s easier to do the things we want to do instead of doing the things we have to do.

Those who are successful know that there is no such thing as being over-prepared. They understand the sacrifice that is necessary to achieve the end in mind and they are the ones who work harder and smarter after everyone else has quit. The times in my life where I have fallen short have been because I lacked the will or because someone out-performed me. Either way, I was ill-prepared.

Discipline is the very thing that determines success. When you have the self-regulation to push yourself far past the point where you want to quit, you will find that you have achieved self-mastery.

This is why our officers train when they would rather be engaging in less demanding activities. This is why those who have fitness goals make the time to exercise their bodies and push them to the extreme. This is why those who are seeking an education (formally or informally) opt to pick up a book instead of turning on the television.

The choices one makes either brings them closer to their goals or they push them further away. When one makes choices that that are centered on self-discipline, they soon find themselves closer to mastering their craft.

Monday, January 26, 2015

One of my favorite videos on leadership is entitled, “How to Start a Movement”. It’s a TED talk and it features Derek Sivers narrating a clip where a lone “nut” is captured on amateur video dancing by himself.

I call him a nut because he dances with such vigor and doesn’t seem to care how ridiculous he looks or that everyone is staring and laughing at him. He simply dances alone in the crowded park.

What happens next changes everything. Another person joins him and starts dancing with him and you can still make the argument that they both look ridiculous but that doesn’t seem to deter them. They continue to dance unapologetically. Soon, several people get up and start dancing with them, and so on, until it’s no longer cool to be the ones who are sitting on the sidelines watching.

When narrating the video, Sivers places the emphasis on the first follower. He suggests that it is the person who joins the dancer that is the most important because he turns “a lone nut into a leader” by the sheer act of following.

As it pertains to starting a movement, followers are a necessary ingredient because they create the tipping point - the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change.

But before there can be followers, there has to be that one person who is courageous enough to not care about the people on the sidelines ridiculing them.

This sounds pretty simple. It’s the same as saying, “Don’t worry about what anyone thinks about you.” And yet, the more I watch people, the more I have come to understand that fear is the single most thing that holds people back from nearly every aspect of their lives - the fear of being judged by others.

I’m not fond of aging. I loathe everything that comes along with becoming more and more distanced from youth. That is, except for the fact that with age and maturity, there comes a better understanding that so much of our lives is wasted on worrying what other people think. We may not all get there at the same time, but there comes a moment where the outside noise becomes irrelevant.

I have such clarity now as I watch those who spend most of their time criticizing others. The people we fear the most are those who are the outspoken judgers. They are often loud and believable and they don’t miss an opportunity to point out the fallibility in others. They ridicule with contrived intellectual superiority and they hold dominion over the weak minds who follow them.

Leaders who don’t use their power for good also have followers. People who are clever and charismatic enough are capable of getting people to stand with them.

These people are powerful because they shatter the confidence of those of you who are trying to do good and if you aren’t careful they will break your spirit.

Who you choose to follow and why you choose to follow them reveals everything about who you are. Do you simply follow those who can benefit you the most? Or do you follow those who genuinely care about other people more than they care about themselves and put the organization before their individual needs?

We need more people to rise to leadership who have their values in alignment with solid principles. That’s a scary thing to ask of someone because for every principle-centered leader, there will be another who rises to ridicule and judge. There is strength in numbers and so we must be the ones who stand with those who use their power for good.

If no one is leading, don’t wait for someone to rise up and take charge of the things you care about. Stand up and dance.

Friday, January 9, 2015

The concept of “de-policing” has been used in the media to describe a de facto police strike, where the police withdraw an aspect of their crime prevention services. It has been suggested that NYPD is engaging in this practice as a result of the officers who were assassinated following the public outrage of the deaths of unarmed, black offenders.

De-policing is a product of morale and morale is a living and breathing animal that is always influx.

For each one of us, there have been times in our careers where we have felt disengaged and disenfranchised because of something that has happened to us personally. My morale has suffered over the years as a result of bad leadership, inequity, and the pressures of the job. When it happens individually, it’s hardly recognizable. If we are resilient, we pick ourselves up, stop feeling sorry for ourselves and move on.

However, when morale affects the collective whole, it is difficult to ignore. In this moment in time, police officers are struggling with the notion that public trust has been eroded. This, along with the very real threat to their lives (even greater than on a typical day) means that officers are suffering an internal struggle that begins with the question, “Why should I even bother?”

Let’s face it, police officers are acutely aware of their image problem. They are responsible for enforcing laws and if you happen to be on the offending end of that scenario, you probably aren’t adding cops to your Christmas card list. The police typically show up when things aren’t going particularly well so they aren’t associated with rainbows and butterflies.

Police don’t enter this profession for recognition and I can promise you that responding to a domestic violence call and thwarting a violent offender rarely results in a thank-you card.

This is why it’s so important that officers find ways to show the community their softer side. By engaging with all members of the community in times of peace, citizens will understand that we have a job to do in times of crisis. When we educate our community by engaging in dialogue with them about our mission and our methods, they better understand why we do what we do. When they understand the “why”, they can accept the “how” while still holding us accountable.

It has always been my philosophy that those with negative views of the police are usually those who are breaking the law. In the aftermath of Ferguson and New York, it suddenly seemed as though the entire world turned their back on us and painted every law enforcement officer with the broad brush as a murderer.

And now, officers are being targeted and killed for no other reason than the uniform they wear.

Why should the police risk their lives for people they don’t even know when even the good citizens question their intentions? The easy answer is that police officers may disengage in some areas but ultimately they will go back to their default. They will get back to work because they understand that the work they do is not for their bosses, but for the citizens of the community that they swore to protect. They will get back to work because they are guardians of the community.

I will speak on behalf of every police officer and say that even though pro-active production is down at NYPD, there is not one cop who won’t rise to action when it’s necessary. Law enforcement officers are people of action and they will not sit idle when duty calls to protect life.

Officers in New York City and all over the United States must realize, however, that the little things will turn into big things if they are ignored for too long. With that, officers have to get back in the game and re-engage. It is in this darkness that we must glow.

The police must rebuild trust with the community one contact at a time and the community has to be reminded that the majority of police officers are selfless human beings committed to upholding laws and protecting the people they serve.

It is not an option to give up. The safety of our respective communities depends upon finding our way through this together.

Aurora Police Department

About Me

I am the Chief of the Aurora Police Department in Illinois.
I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice from Aurora University and a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice Management from Boston University. I am a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (Senior Executives in State and Local Government) and am a proud graduate of the FBI National Academy #249. I am currently pursuing a 2nd Master's Degree in Homeland Security and Defense at the CHDS Naval Postgraduate School.
I've been with the Aurora Police Department since 1991 where I started as a police cadet. During my 20+ year career, I've worked in various divisions including Community Oriented Policing, Domestic Violence Reduction Unit, Field Training and Patrol. Prior to my promotion to Chief, I served as the Patrol Commander and the Investigations Commander.
My passion is public speaking and teaching. I helped found "Blue Courage" which is a 2 day training course for police officers (see BlueCourage.com).